MODERN NOVEL

TO THE LIGHT HOUSE (THEMES)

GROUP:02
ASMA ABBASI
IRUM MUMTAZ KHAN
BIBI ULFAT JAMAL
ANEEQA FATIMA
01: ASMA ABBASI

• Introduction
1: what is a theme?
2: “To the Lighthouse” not a traditional novel.
3: Apparently starts with a wish and ends on its fulfillment.
4: The novel is much more than a visit.
5: Woolf’s primary subject is study of human mature.
THEME OF TIME IN NOVEL

• According to Virginia Woolf:

“Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged , for it is a
luminous hole, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of
consciousness to the end.”
• She describes the novel by representing time in two perspectives:
1: objective: based on the clock time.
2: Subjective: based on human life experiences.
• Novel presents the human life between the two extremes:
• Impression between the single lived second.
• Mediating on time stretching back into the past and into the future beyond
the human span of knowledge.
• Section- I and III occur almost in real time giving the minute details of
events.
• Section-II compression of time, where section spans a whole decade within
just few pages.
OUTLOOK OF DIFFERENT CHARACTERS:

• Mr. Ramsay:
• Stuck in present .
“How many men in a thousand million, he asked himself, reach Z
after all? One perhaps, one in a generation.” Chap#06
“He would never reach R.”
• continuously doubting himself and fear of failure.
MRS. RAMSAY

• Optimistic view of time (future).

“Yes of course, if it’s fine tomorrow.” chap#01
• At times, insecure about the future of her children.
• She did not want them to grow and face the realities of life.
LILY BRISCOE

• More like Mr. Ramsay.

• Belittles her life choices , criticizing her paintings.
• Doubts about the future of her career.
“It was absurd, it was impossible.” Chap 04
TRANSIENCE OF LIFE

• Section II “Time Passes” is real depiction of transience of life.

• The natural world which encompasses time and morality_ precedes as usual
whether humans are happy or grieving.
• How a whole decade is described in few pages.
• Death of three members of Ramsay’s family. (Mrs. Ramsay, Prue Ramsay ,
Andrew Ramsay) Chap# 03, 06
“Because it has been so many years since she’s been at the
summerhouse and because so much has happened in that interval,
Lily can see the summerhouse and the Ramsay with fresh eyes.
everything thus seems strange and unreal.”
THEME OF PAST AND MEMORY

“The pain of the lost past is replaced, for Lily, by the comfort of
memory’s enduring presence in the present. Even though she is
dead, Mrs. Ramsay is “with” Lily. In a way, it is not so different from
the image one holds in mind of a living person who is in a distant
location, as Mr. Ramsay, Cam, and James can still be part of Lily’s
interior life even though they are out at sea.” Chap#07 Sec 03
THEMES
MARRIAGE
PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP

By Irum Mumtaz Khan

Ms20250
THEME OF MARRIAGE
• The true portrayal of the Victorian institution of marriage.
• Complicated and immature relationship of husband and wife.
• Mr. Ramsay as a dominating husband
• For instance, when the trip to the lighthouse is under discussion in the 6th chapter, Mrs. Ramsay
dares to ask how he knows that there is no chance that they can go to the lighthouse the next day
and at that question her husband loses his poise:
• “The extraordinary irrationality of her remark, the folly of women’s minds enraged him. […] she
flew in the face of facts, made his children hope what was utterly out of the question, in effect, told
lies. He stamped his foot on the stone step. ‘Damn you,’ he said.” (Pg.50, VI)
• Mr. Ramsay considers her wife irrational and insane which shows his aggressive nature while Mrs.
Ramsay idealizes him as the best husband (submissive nature)
• “There was nobody whom she reverenced as she reverenced him.” (Pg.51, VI)
THEME OF MARRIAGE
• Though Mr. Ramsay is a domineering figure he needs sympathy from his wife:
• “It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius.” (Pg. 59, VII)
• Mrs. Ramsay considers herself an ordinary woman and the thought of having her husband
dependent on her discomposed her.
• “ She did not like, even for a second, to feel finer than her husband; and further, could not
bear not being entirely sure, when she spoke to him, of the truth of what she said.
Universities and people wanting him, lectures and books and their being of the highest
importance – all that she did not doubt for a moment; bit it was their relation, and his
coming to her like that, openly, so that any one could see, that discomposed her; for then
people said that he depended on her, when they must know that of the two he was infinitely
the more important, and what she gave the world, in comparison with what he gave,
negligible.” (pg. 61-62, VII)
THEME OF MARRIAGE
• True feelings but communication gap between Mr.Ramsay and Mrs. Ramsay
• “He turned and saw her. Ah! She was lovely, lovelier now than ever he thought. But he
could not speak to her. He could not interrupt her. He wanted urgently to speak to her
now that James was gone and she was alone at last. But he resolved, no; he would not
interrupt her.” (Pg. 100, Xl)
• He did not like to see her look so sad, he said. (Pg. 104, XII)
• “A heartless he called her; she never told him that she loved him.” (pg. 185, XIX)
THEME OF MARRIAGE

• Unspoken interaction keeps them together

• “As she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had
not said a word, he knew, of course he knew, that she loved
him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the
window and Said (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can
equal this happiness).” (pg. 185-186, XIX)
PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP

• The youngest son of the age of six, James wishes to visit the
lighthouse
• Mrs. Ramsay as an emotional mother who gives hope to her son,
“it may be fine –I expect it will be fine.”
• A good mother who does not want to spoil her children
• “ she would not let them laugh at him.”
• ‘ Who was ten thousand times better in every way than he was
( James thought).’
PARENT–CHILD RELATIONSHIP
• Mr. Ramsay as a practical and rational father
• Disappoints his son by destroying his hope of visiting the lighthouse, “it
will not be fine tomorrow”.
• “He was incapable of untruth… all of his own children,who, sprung
from his loins, should be aware from childhood that life is difficult; …
one that needs, above all, courage, truth, and the power to endure.”
( pg. 10-11, I)
• His father’s “Victorian strictness and love for the truth” awakens a rage in
James so that he even imagines to kill him. (Pg.10)
PARENT –CHILD RELATIONSHIP

• At the age of sixteen, James' wish is going to be fulfilled but he is not happy along
with his sister, cam
• “ He had made them come … he had forced them to come against their
wills.” ( pg. 239, IV)
• “They had been forced; they had been bidden. He had borne them down once
more with his gloom and his authority.” (pg. 242, IV)
• “ And all the time , as his father read… James kept dreading when he would
look up and speak sharply to him…and if he does , James thought, then I
shall take a knife and strike him to the heart.” (pg. 269, VIII)
• A sarcastic brute, a tyrant and egotistical
 GENDER ROLES

PRESENTED BY: BIBI ULFAT JAMAL

  Virginia Woolf mainly presents three characters who embody three
different roles.

1. Mrs. Ramsay

• Withholds Victorian ideals and conforms to the traditional role of women:

Good mother, wife, host, match-maker, and social worker…her responsibilities in the dinner scene
Thinks of women’s duty to make home life easy for men
“Men negotiated treaties, ruled India, and controlled finance”( pg.13)
“She has the whole of the other sex under her protection”(pg.13)
• Her idea about marriage:
“ An unmarried woman has missed the best of life”(pg.77)
2. Lily Briscoe

• Resents the traditional roles:

Independent woman
Does not want to marry
“She liked to be alone, she liked to be herself, she was not made for
that”.(pg. 77)
Not comforting and sympathizing with male characters
Disregards Tansley’s words
CONTI…

• Aspiring woman:
Wants to complete her painting
Finds fulfillment with the completion of that painting
“ I have had my vision”
3. Mr. Ramsay

• Trying to inhabit the traditional role of female protector

“They needed his protection, he gave it to them”(pg.53)
• However, lacks appreciation for his wife
• Reliant on Mrs. Ramsay for sympathy, praise, and crave
“ It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his
genius”(pg. 59)
• Reliant on Lily as well, for sympathy
 CONCLUSION

• The character of lily, her vision, and its fulfillment shows women’s
transformation from typical Victorian women to modern women, however;
Lily remains possessed by thoughts of Mrs. Ramsay at the end of the novel
suggests rejection of the idea of independence of women in the modern era.
STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

•Aneeqa Fatima.
 STREAM OF CONSIOUSNESS:
•  ‘’Stream of consciousness’’ is technique to study the inner thoughts and conflicts of the
characters.

•  Introduce the character study through their mental condition instead of their actions.
• “Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his
father's breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it. Such were the
extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited in his children's breasts by his mere presence;
standing, as now, lean as a knife, narrow as the blade of one, grinning sarcastically, not only
with the pleasure of disillusioning his son and casting ridicule upon his wife, who was ten
thousand times better in every way than he was (James thought), but also with some secret
conceit at his own accuracy of judgement.” (Pg 10, Ch# 1)
• Three characters Mrs. Ramsay, Mr. Ramsay and James.
STREAM OF CONSIOUSNESS:

• Stream of consciousness is about discussing the psychoanalytical aspects

of the personality of the characters.
• “She did not know. She did not mind. She could not understand how she
had ever felt any emotion or affection for him. She had a sense of being
past everything, through everything, out of everything, as she helped the
soup, as if there was an eddy—there— and one could be in it, or one
could be out of it, and she was out of it.”(Pg,125 Ch#XVII)

• Mrs. Ramsay.
STREAM OF CONSIOUSNESS:
• Woolf develops her characters through their thoughts, memories, and
reactions to each other.

• How old she looks, how worn she looks, Lily thought, and how remote. Then
when she turned to William Bankes, smiling, it was as if the ship had turned
and the sun had struck its sails again, and Lily thought with some amusement
because she was relieved, Why does she pity him?
• And it was not true, Lily thought; it was one of those misjudgments of hers
that seemed to be instinctive and to arise from some need of her own rather
than of other people's. He is not in the least pitiable. He has his work, Lily said
to herself.(Pg,127 Ch#XVII)